Some of this has been said in threads above, but I don’t think that upvotes are a very good way of knowing what the forum thinks. People are definitely not reading this whole thread and the first posts they see will likely get all of their attention.
On top of that, I do not expect forum karma to be a good indicator of much even in the best case. People tend to upvote what they can understand and what is interesting and useful to them. I suspect what the average EA forum user finds useful and interesting is probably only loosely related with what a large EA grantmaker should fund. For instance, in general good writing is a very good way to get upvotes, but that doesn’t correlate much with the strength of the ideas presented.
Some of this has been said in threads above, but I don’t think that upvotes are a very good way of knowing what the forum thinks. People are definitely not reading this whole thread and the first posts they see will likely get all of their attention.
On top of that, I do not expect forum karma to be a good indicator of much even in the best case. People tend to upvote what they can understand and what is interesting and useful to them. I suspect what the average EA forum user finds useful and interesting is probably only loosely related with what a large EA grantmaker should fund. For instance, in general good writing is a very good way to get upvotes, but that doesn’t correlate much with the strength of the ideas presented.